2 The Systems Harmonized and Explained.
II THE SYSTEMS HARMONIZED AND EXPLAINED It is several years since the author of the present work, in a little book entitled "The Theory of Temperaments," divided as follows the Four Temperaments. Two of these Temperaments he found to possess a sensitive or "subjective" character, in their evident propensity to let emotionalism prevail over the detached and reasoning Self, even to the extent of absorbing all and assuming full control. These two were the Nervous and the Sanguine. Their common verb, indicating what there is of jealousy, selfishness and egotism in such natures, is to Possess, to Have, or to Enjoy. To these were opposed, under the title "Objective" (that is to say, temperaments more disposed to externalize, to MANIFEST themselves) the Lymphatic (or Phlegmatic) and the Bilious: (of this latter, be it said in passing, determination is much more characteristic than irritability, although the latter, because it is a RESULT of determination before an obstacle, has given to the Bilious Temperament the misleading name of "Choleric," thus creating an annoying confusion with the Sanguine and the Nervous, which are quite as much inclined to choler). While as to the term "Objective", it appeared from the first, and appears now, to the author, more appropriate by far than that of "Active," applied by M. Fouillee at the same time to the Bilious and to the Lymphatic! It was observed in "The Theory of Temperaments" that the Nervous and the Bilious, the one by its imagination and the other by its strength of will, represented the "Intellectual." Have they not a common tendency to abstraction, to idealization? Likewise, the Sanguine and the Lymphatic, with their tendency to materialism, to realism, represent the "Physical," both being devoted to practical life and comfort, the one with greater ardor, the other with greater constancy. The antithesis between the Active and Passive offered the last binary combination which can be made between these four Temperaments, and consequently united on the one hand the Bilious (that is, the Obstinate) with the restless Sanguine, while on the other the Nervous and the Lymphatic are drawn together by their faculty of feeling, of suffering. The diagram on next page will give a clear idea of the perfect concord between the diverse classes which we have, after a fashion, just reduced to a common denominator. This analysis has a double advantage : 1st: It defines with precision, for the first time, the Four Temperaments in their psychological significance, gives them a constitutive formula and measures exactly the distance which separates them one from another. The Bilious is thus defined, simply by its position in the diagram, as an Intellectual-active-objective; the Lymphatic as a Physical-passive-objective, etc. 2nd: It ramifies into six chief branches as genealogy of new types derived from the first Four. And these six new types, less generous, begin to press more closely upon the human reality. Further, it had, as we have just seen, the advantage of putting into accord, several years ago, two conflicting systems which are to this day opposed. Does it not reconcile, in a common reality, the four-division system extolled by M. Fouillee with the three-divisional method of other philosophers, and introduce a binary system as well? True, it did not in the beginning attach much importance to justifying itself from a medical point of view; its origin was more poetic than scientific, and it does not hesitate before those questions which the Poets, at all times and among all peoples, have better studied than the Physicians. It prefers, with its Masters, to take flight from medical territory, wherein the first malady will transform the physiological temperament and nevertheless modify only secondary parts of the character, toward the open sky of the great natural Analogies.